It’s no mean feat to be 23 and already sweeping film festival circuits of their feet. Such is the life…
This is pure, ravishing cinema – undulating with tragedy, complexity and sublime technical command. There is hardly a film this year as beguiling and astonishing as Paul Thomas Anderson’s artful study of the human psyche and our species’ grandstanding capacity for self-delusion in a meaningless world. The Master is, for the lack of a better word, a masterwork from a film-maker at the height of his craft.
You may actively condemn Compliance for its unpleasantness, but there’s no denying the kick it sends to the guts. It’s a merciless piece of cinema that’s uncomfortable, appalling and provocative all at once, a film that compels us to take a hard look at a disquieting spectacle of ignorance – the human tragedy to blindly follow, obey and concede to authority without asking ‘why’.
A searing, finely judged portrayal of one man’s staunch battle against collective condemnation.
Nicole Kidman is having a career renaissance, nailing down superb, emotionally nuanced turns in Rabbit Hole, HBO’s >Hemingway & Gellhorn, and the Cannes controversy-stirring The Paperboy. And then there’s Stoker.